Identrus Names eFinance Exec as CEO

Identrus, a consortium of banks that provides non-repudiation services for e-commerce business partners, has named former eFinance executive Karen Wendel as its new chief executive officer.

Wendel takes over for Guy Tallent, a former Chase banking executive who was one of the founders of the consortium, which now counts about 60 global banks as members. Tallent left the CEO post about six months ago.

Identrus was formed in 1999 as a not-for-profit group of banks that provides services as Certificate Authorities (CA’s) or Registration Authorities (RA’s). The mission is to verify the identities of trading partners as well provide continuous checks on the credentials of the partners as they strike deals in the digital realm.

Identrus-issued CAs are unique digital IDs that it provides to customers, which deploy public key infrastructure (PKI) as part of its role of binding parties to deals.

Wendel brings a background of more than 20 years in finance and technology to the position, executives involved with the consortium said.

Prior to joining Identrus, she was CEO of eFinance Corporation, an applications development company for risk and credit decisioning. Before that she was a partner with Belgium-based consulting firm The Capital Markets Company (CAPCO). She also led the U.S. financial services practice for Gemini Consulting.

In her new role, she is expected to lead the drive toward greater digital certificate usage within the financial services, government and corporate sectors worldwide, Identrus said. Additionally, Wendel is expected to strike more strategic alliances and possible acquisitions to help accelerate certificate-enabled applications development and deployment.

Members of Identrus include ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Bankers Trust, Barclays, Chase Manhattan, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Hypo Vereinsbank. Last March, Identrus acquired fellow certificate authority player Digital Signature Trust (DST).